That is not an easy question to answer! First I think we have to accept that engaging all learners in all learning activities is a very challenging goal. Nevertheless, I should aim for that goal while recognizing the myriad factors that may prevent a student from engaging. I live in a low income district, and the school that I most like to sub at and observe the teachers is 90% free and reduced lunch. There are real problems that these students are facing. I am grateful to the teacher who told that I needed to read about poverty in order to understand more about the lives of the students and their parents. She referenced a book on the “culture of poverty”and explainedits thesis that those in a culture of poverty don’t think about the future so they have difficulty seeing why their education in middle school is crucial to their future success. She said that she always tells kids why they are learning something, so that it will be easier for them to engage in the activity. The work, A Framework for Understanding Povertyis referenced in one of my credential program textbook as seeking, “to understand the characteristics of the students and their families and then make “appropriate decisions about curriculum and instruction” (Burden & Byrd, 2016, p. 39). I have learned a lot, and thought a lot about how to meet kids where they are.
So that is the problem. What are some possible solutions to lack of engagement? According to UDL, the affective networks in the brain, "monitor the internal and external environment to set priorities, to motivate, and to engage learning and behavior" (Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014, p. 54). When students are anxious or stressed, they have difficulty engaging and learning in school. But these stresses can be overcome.
An experiment was conducted in which students completed an in-class written assignment, “wherein they were prompted to reaffirm their sense of personal adequacy or self-integrity” (Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014, p. 57). This was repeated three to five times a year and resulted in a forty percent increase in subsequent test scores of black students. These results were attributed to the mitigation of “stereotype threat” for these students. And the results lasted for two years! This shows how powerfully the affective networks impact student learning. Students must feel that they belong in school and are respected as individuals and as learners. This means that teachers need to intentionally create a calm and safe refuge for their students in an orderly classroom so that, at least for the time they are in the class, the students will feel safe and able to learn. The essential starting point in a plan to achieve this is for me to continue learning all I can about classroom management theories and strategies. So far I feel that Teach Like a Champion 2.0 combined with Whole Brain Teaching are what makes the most sense for me to start out with in my first classroom, which I hope will be middle school (Biffle, 2014 & Lemov, 2016). If it is high school, I will most likely use only Teach Like a Champion 2.0. My students, if I teach in my district, will be majority Latino/a and about 25% are English Learners. I need to show them that I understand and respect their culture and language. I am going to add the bilingual authorization to my credential, and I am taking graduate classes on teaching English Learners so that I can effectively teach this particular student population.
My answer is more theoretical and general than concrete with examples because I am still learning the why, which I need in order to better understand the how. A few examples of what I will specifically do is provide multiple means of engagement for students in every lesson, such as different ways to activate prior knowledge. In a lesson on the beginning of the War for American Independence students would be asked to draw a picture or write a paragraph of something they already know about the war. Or they could read the poem The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, or choose to listen to a rap version of it; there is a really fun version of the poem that I used with a class before. I hope to learn more in my courses about research based practices that I can implement in addition to the two approaches of Teach Like a Champion 2.0 and Whole Brain Teaching and Learning.
References
Biffle, C. (2014, August 3). Whole brain teaching: Middle school model classroom [Video file].Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Ucot78RYHCI
Burden, P. R., & Byrd, D. M. (2016). Methods for effective teaching: Meeting the needs of all students. New York, NY: Pearson.
Gordon, Meyer, A., & Rose, D. H.. (2014). Universal Design for Learning: Theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST.
Lemov, D., Hernandez, J., & Kim, J. (2016). Teach like a champion field guide 2.0. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2011). Learner Variability and UDL [Online seminar presentation]. UDL Series, No. 1. Wakefield, MA.
Slavin, R. E. (2018). Educational psychology. New York, NY: Pearson.